Oct. 28, 2003
2:55 a.m.
If we adopt a method of nonlocal assignment that allows the deprecation of "global", then we have a chance to change this, if we think that such "at-a-distance" rules are undesirable in general.
Do we think that?
Alex certainly seems to be arguing this, but I think it's a lost cause. Even Alex will have to accept the long-distance effect of def f(): x = 42 . . (hundreds of lines of unrelated code) . print x And at some point in the future Python *will* grow (optional) type declarations for all sorts of things (arguments, local variables, instance variables) and those will certainly have effect at a distance. --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)